Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Battle for Salvation - Opening Hoopla and Game 1!

This weekend past (Oct 5-7th) was the third Battle for Salvation Grand Tournament hosted by the BFS gaming club based in White Plains, New York at the Palisades Mall in Nyack, NY.

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Bob Sinnot, TO, judging paint on one of the MANY Tyranid armies!

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This event has quickly become my favorite of the tournaments in the area. The TOs are thoughtful, thorough, organized, and really do things that players like. One of my favorite things about how they set things up, also mentioned by Dan at Ten Inch Template, is they set up 2-feet of table space in between each gaming table to put your army and equipment. Not having to bend over every few minutes to pick up or remove a pile of guys is huge!

The tournament uses the NOVA format for missions, where each game has a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary goal that will be either Objectives, Table Quarters, or Kill Points. If you tie on Primary, you go to the Secondary, etc. This has been a popular format for tournaments over the last few years, and translates pretty well to 6e. I have some minor issues with a few things, which I'll discuss later..

I got there Friday evening. I'd intended to show up early, even took the day off work, but the wife had a job interview (wish her luck! things sound positive, and I'm very hopeful! Two incomes will be GREAT!) at lunch time, then I got stuck in HORRIBLE Friday traffic trying to cross the Tappen Zee (same thing happened last year!). I drove alone, as Sean was stuck at work, which made for a long, boring, somewhat depressing evening sitting in the car staring a the other bored, depressed drivers stuck in traffic with me.

I didn't show up until after 7. I got to spend a little time taking pics of the pretty armies, got my stuff paint-judged (I ended up with a score I was quite pleased with, I thought very appropriate for what I think my stuff looks like...others had different experiences). I then got to hang out with fun celebrities like Mike Brandt, Tony Kopach, Joe Johnson and lots of guys from the Nova crew who's names I can not remember. I was introduced to Pumpkin Ale...a seasonal treat I'm sorry to have missed until now! We ended up staying out quite a bit later than was wise for old fogeys like me...didn't get to the hotel until 1ish, and had a super hard time falling asleep....butterflies!

Some pics from Friday night...

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The Secrets of Tzeentch...my army

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Tony takes out his toys...he had no display board, bummed one from someone later :)

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Mike politicising and setting up his army...

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Joe Johnson's Best Painted Army winning Dark Eldar

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Joe's work is unbelievable

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Sean Nayden's Eldrad kneeling before Urien...hilarious

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Mike Brandt's Tyranid swarm

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Tony's infantry hordes...on borrowed display board?

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Sean Nayden's Dark Eldar with unwilling Eldar allies

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My personal favorite, Dan's "Aliens" Tyranid army

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Dozens of genestealers and broodlords

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The face-hugger was creepy, but the music scared the shit out of me!

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Having far too little sleep (I was still tossing and turning after 2am...melatonin to the rescue!), Sean and I got up, stumbled out, checked in, and got some McDonald's for breakfast. We met Brian, and wandered around amazed at the change that one little edition makes!

Last year, tournaments were populated by Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and the occasional Dark Eldar and Necron force. Tyranids, Daemons, Orks, Tau etc were few and far between, and seldom did well. This year was almost the opposite! Daemons and Tyranids were probably the most populous armies there! Knights, Necrons, and a handful of 'vanilla' Marines were there. I didn't see any Blood Angels (though I was told someone talked to someone who heard from someone that there was a Blood Angel army there...). My how things have changed! And of course, it seemed everyone had hordes and hordes of infantry bodies. I saw only a handful of mech Imperial Guard, which is something I expected to see a lot of!

So after sucking down a giant iced coffee to get the adrenalin flowing, the matchings went up, and I was paired up with Eddy Miller, son of the TO! This was our second meeting, the first being at a BFS tournament a few years ago where we had one of the bloodiest battles I remember, with him killing all of my Ork Boyz, and me winning the game with just a handful of Nob Bikers, koptas, and Snikrot saving the day. This year Ed was playing Logan-led Space Wolves, with, if memory serves, 6 Wolf Guard units, each with a Terminator Cyclone, and 3 Long Fang squads. The obligatory Rune Priest was included, as was two Lone Wolf Terminators.

Let me apologize now...my battle reports will be mostly cursory. I was completely exhausted all weekend. I took sporadic photos at random times, I took no notes, and my brain was too foggy for me to remember the details I normally do!

I got the wrong drop in, so Horrors dropped in way to the rear, hoping to avoid getting shot at too much while holding objectives/quarters, and flamers went in hot. I had minor scatters that left them safe and in good position. About 1/3 of his army was destroyed when I dropped in, including Logan himself. A rough start for poor Ed.

He didn't panic, shot down the Flamers, finishing off the ones that didn't die to shooting with the Lone Wolves.

I got in 2 Screamers, and all the Chickens except Fateweaver. They all dropped in behind the giant Line Of Sight blocking terrain in the middle and hunkered down for the turn 3 push. Stelek would be angry.

His Wolf Scouts (which I forgot to mention...) come on and shoot up some Horrors. His army shuffles for shots, taking down a few Screamers that couldn't fit behind the wall and I believe finish off a Horror unit.

Fateweaver and the last Screamers come on. He lands right in front of Eddy's army, the rest of the Chickens Swoop up to surround him. One set of screamers goes to kill one of the Lone Wolves. I inexplicably did not kill the other...I'm sure I had a plan, but I have no idea what it was!

The rest of the Horrors are giddy to have something that their AP4 shots are good at, so all move towards the Scouts.

He fires his whole army at Fateweaver. He does no wounds, but grounds him. The Lone Wolf that I inexplicably ignored charges him. Uhoh! I believe I take a wound, but pass Ldr.

Turn 4 and the hammer drops. The Screamers fan out, each wiping a unit. A Prince and the Lord go after the last of the Long Fangs. The other Prince goes in to the Lone Wolf, and challenges, saving Fateweaver. The Horrors wipe out the Scouts.

Game over, and a super-solid win! I got 2 objectives, 4 quarters, and 12/14 kill points (I killed him all, but don't get points for the Lone Wolves...something like that). Eddy was truly a good sport, taking things with a smile and a laugh. Super bad matchup for him, eating marines in the open is what I designed this list to do, and it does it well! I can't wait to play Eddy again!!

Off to a good start, and hopefully a big enough score to get a softer matchup round 2!